Drug and Alcohol Dependence 213 (2020) 108115 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Drug and Alcohol Dependence journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/drugalcdep Full length article Listed for sale: Analyzing data on fentanyl, fentanyl analogs and other novel synthetic opioids on one cryptomarket T Francois R. Lamya,*, Raminta Daniulaityteb, Monica J. Barrattc,d, Usha Lokalae, Amit Shethf, Robert G. Carlsong a Department of Society and Health, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Mahidol University, Salaya, Thailand b College of Health Solutions, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, United States c Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia d National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, NSW, Australia e Kno.e.sis Center, Department of Computer Science, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, United States f Artificial Intelligence Center, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, United States g Center for Interventions, Treatment, and Addictions Research, Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, United States ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Background: The United States is facing a "triple wave" epidemic fueled by novel synthetic opioids. Cryptomarkets Cryptomarkets, anonymous marketplaces located on the deep web, play an increasingly important role in the Darknet markets distribution of illicit substances. This article presents the data collected and processed by the eDarkTrends Fentanyl platform concerning the availability trends of novel synthetic opioids listed on one cryptomarket. Fentanyl analogs Methods: Listings from the DreamMarket cryptomarket "Opioids" and "Research Chemicals" sections were col- Synthetic opioids lected between March 2018 and January 2019. Collected data were processed using eDarkTrends Named Entity Recognition algorithm to identify opioid drugs, and to analyze their availability trends in terms of frequency of listings, available average weights, average prices, and geographic indicators of shipment origin and destination information. Results: 95,011 opioid-related listings were collected through 26 crawling sessions. 33 novel synthetic opioids were identified in 3.3 % of the collected listings. 44.7 % of these listings advertised fentanyl (pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical) or fentanyl analogs for an average of 2.8 kgs per crawl. "Synthetic heroin" accounted for 33.2 % of novel synthetic opioid listings for an average 1.1 kgs per crawl with 97.7 % of listings advertised as shipped from Canada. Other novel synthetic opioids (e.g., U-47,700, AP-237) represented 22 % of these listings for an average of 6.1 kgs per crawl with 97.2 % of listings advertised as shipped from China. Conclusions: Our data indicate consistent availability of a wide variety of novel synthetic opioids both in retail and wholesale-level amounts. Identification of new substances highlights the value of cryptomarket data for early warning systems of emerging substance use trends. 1. Introduction a steady increase in the number of pharmaceutical opioid-related overdose deaths (Paulozzi et al., 2006; Hall et al., 2008) as well as an The United States is experiencing the worst opioid overdose epi- increase in the prevalence of opioid use disorder (Compton and Volkow, demic in its history. The first wave of the opioid crisis is associated with 2006). The second wave of the opioid crisis was marked by the in- prescription opioids misuse. It was fueled by the increased volume of creases in heroin use, as growing numbers of individuals who abused opioid prescribing, including by general practitioners, that could be pharmaceutical opioids started transitioning to heroin, a more potent, traced back to the recognition of pain as the "fifth vital sign," increased plentiful and less costly alternative to illicit pain pills (Carlson et al., concerns about the under-treatment of pain, and more aggressive 2016; Cicero et al., 2014; Mars et al., 2014; Unick et al., 2014, 2013). marketing and distribution strategies employed by pharmaceutical Emerging data suggest that some of the measures that were designed to companies (Van Zee, 2009; Ciccarone, 2019). From the mid 1990s to curb the availability of pharmaceutical opioids, might have inad- early 2010s, the diversion and misuse of pharmaceutical opioids caused vertently accelerated transition to heroin use among individuals who ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (F.R. Lamy). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2020.108115 Received 12 February 2020; Received in revised form 14 May 2020; Accepted 8 June 2020 Available online 12 June 2020 0376-8716/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. F.R. Lamy, et al. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 213 (2020) 108115 were dependent on pharmaceutical opioids (Castillo-Carniglia et al., beginning of 2019 (Ball et al., 2019). However, information regarding 2019). Finally, since 2013–2014, novel synthetic opioids, such as illi- the origin and type of these novel synthetic opioids are needed to citly manufactured fentanyl, fentanyl analogs (i.e., substances sharing characterize cryptomarket data related to specific types of novel syn- similar chemical structure and action as fentanyl) and other novel thetic opioids, such as specific types of fentanyl analogs and other novel synthetic opioids (e.g., U-47,700, MT-45) have emerged in the drug synthetic opioids. To establish timely and effective policy and inter- market creating what has been called a "third wave" of the opioid vention responses to the opioid crisis in the U.S., epidemiological epidemic in the US (Ciccarone, 2019; Jones et al., 2018) and exacer- monitoring systems need to be able to rapidly identify shifts in avail- bating the opioid crisis even further. ability trends of specific novel synthetic opioid products and alert In the U.S, novel synthetic opioids were responsible for 30.5 % (n = policy makers about emerging new substances. This study builds on the 74,409) of all opioid-related overdose deaths that occurred nationally eDarkTrends project that was developed to collect and process cryp- between 2010 and 2017 (Hedegaard et al., 2018). The negative impacts tomarket data on fentanyl, fentanyl analogs and other novel synthetic in some of the Northeastern and Midwestern communities were even opioids. The overall aims of this paper are to present data collected more profound (Pardo et al., 2019). For example, in Montgomery from Dream Market over 10 months, focusing on the amounts of drugs County, Ohio, about 90 % of all unintentional overdose deaths that offered for sale (in terms of number of listings and total weight avail- occurred in 2016 and 2017 tested positive for novel synthetic opioids able for purchase), prices, and information on distribution patterns in (Daniulaityte et al., 2017a,b, 2019). terms of the countries listed as shipment origin and destination. Novel synthetic opioids are a part of the larger group of new psy- choactive substances defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and 2. Methods Crime (UNODC) as "substances of abuse, either in a pure form or a preparation, that are not controlled by the 1961 Single Convention on 2.1. Data collection Narcotic Drugs or the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, but which may pose a public health threat." Between 2010 and 2019, the eDarkTrends, a semi-automated platform, was developed to monitor European Monitoring Centre for Drug and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) listings of fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, and other novel synthetic opioids identified 49 novel synthetic opioids in the European drug markets on cryptomarkets to assess availability trends and identify emerging (EMCDDA, 2019). Most of these substances were not "new" per se, but substances. The data presented in this paper were collected from the rather, a resurgence of substances from older biomedical literature with DreamMarket cryptomarket and covered a nearly one-year time period limited information on their side effects (Baumann et al., 2018). Al- from March 2018 to January 2019, until DreamMarket was shut down though fentanyl was part of the substances controlled under the 1961 in February 2019 (Madore, 2019). At that time, DreamMarket was the convention, and has a long history of medical use in a variety of largest existing cryptomarket with over 60,000 listings for drugs pharmaceutical forms (e.g., Duragesic transdermal system), it is in- (Knight, 2019). Although it established a ban on fentanyl and fentanyl cluded under the label of novel synthetic opioid because current in- analog listings in May of 2018 (Ball et al., 2019), data collection was creases do not involve pharmaceutical fentanyl, but are associated with maintained as the DreamMarket remained the biggest cryptomarket non-pharmaceutical fentanyl that is illicitly produced in clandestine advertising thousands of other illicit synthetic opioids, and some ven- laboratories. It also reflects the actual position of the Drug Enforcement dors continued to sell fentanyl-type drugs under other names. Agency (DEA), which considers fentanyl as the "most prevalent and Data were collected using a custom eDarkTrends web crawler de- most significant synthetic opioid threat in the United States" (DEA, veloped and maintained by the research team at the Kno.e.sis Center 2018a,b). (fourth author U.L.). A crawler is an automated script that system- There is a growing body of evidence showing that darknet markets, atically collects all the information contained on the selected websites also known as